south of the loop

I spent a long weekend in Fort Collins, Colorado, visiting my awesome vet-in-training friend, Miles. I rarely get to see her, and although we were both a little stressed (me: upcoming work deadlines, her: upcoming school deadlines), we managed to pack in the factory tours.

A little history. Many years ago, I found myself living with my parents in Carmel, Indiana, a snooty suburb of Indianapolis. I knew nobody. Due to a number of circumstances, I had to spend nearly all my time at home. No job possibilities, no car—as though it mattered, since I could barely find my way out of the neighborhood. Dark days. Very dark days.

And so I wrote Miles a letter and gave her a top ten list of reasons why she needed to come visit. I can’t remember what any of them were, but given my doomed plight in Indiana and my propensity for hyperbole, I’m sure they were quite persuasive. At any rate, she came.

But, Miles being Miles, she couldn’t just drive up from St. Louis to cheer me up. No, Miles prepares for these things. She went to the library and got a guidebook—Indiana: Off the Beaten Path. In it, she found a hidden gem: the Sechler Pickle Factory in St. Joe, Indiana.

And so it began. (The story of Sechler’s will have to wait for another blog post, but it’s near Fort Wayne, Indiana, and absolutely worth the drive, no matter where you live. Check out www.gourmetpickles.com, plan your trip, and get ready to try nearly 40 varieties of pickles!). Ever since the day when we gritted our teeth and forced apple cinnamon pickles down our throats, we’ve gone on as many factory tours as we can—our list includes the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, a shoelace factory, and a pizza farm.

So when I hit Denver early last Thursday morning, I was ready. Miles had a full itinerary: the U.S. Mint, Hammond’s Candies, and the Great Divide Brewing Company. And this was just the first day! Hammond’s Candies was probably my favorite of the day—a little quirky and a lot of fun. We learned, for instance, that it takes anywhere from six months to two years to become a candymaker! Simple hard candies are the easiest to make, but it takes a long time to learn how to make the candies with the shapes in the center. On Friday, we drove to Boulder for a tour of the Celestial Seasonings factory, and Saturday, we hit the Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy in Niwot, Colorado, and the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins. New Belgium actually clocks in as one of the best tours I’ve been on—Bernie, our tour guide, clearly loves what he does, and he talked more about the philosophy and ideology behind New Belgium than how to make good beer. Turns out that N.B. has been a green company from the beginning—they’ve been wind-powered since the late 90s, and they’ve implemented a lot of cost- and energy-saving measures in the beer-making process. And Bernie let us go down the employee slide, which is probably the most fun I’ve had on a factory tour!

I’ll try to post more detailed write-ups on our factory tour adventures over the next week. However, I am insanely busy at work, am pet-sitting for a friend, am writing a book review for an online literary magazine, and, oh yeah, I’m getting ready to move. So if you don’t hear from me for awhile, check out my Flickr set of the trip, which I trust you will all find highly amusing.

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current book: Supposedly still Museum, on accounta having a book review on it due September 1, but I think my mom packed it in her enthusiasm to help get me ready to move. Shit.

current music: Lots of 80s tunes on the road with Miles.

current socks: Black with various cocktail drinks on them. They are my wishful thinking socks. Oh how I need a cocktail right now!

Posted 21 August 2007

Filed under: factory tours, life in general by admin2

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